The main news today again comes out of the euro zone, this time the approval of the expansion of the euro area rescue fund - the EFSF - by the German Bundestag, or the lower house of Parliament.

The vote passed with 523 yes votes and 85 against, no 15 of the members of her coalition did vote against. The approval of these changes increases Germany's guarantees to €211 billion from €123 billion, and gives the fund the powers to buy bonds in the secondary market, allows it to recap help recapitalize banks, as well as offer precautionary credit lines to sideburns under speculative attack.

This is one of the steps needed for the EFSF to be able to take a more forceful role in stemming the crisis, next to the ECB. Austria's Parliament votes on the measure tomorrow, and the last euro zone member to ratify the July 21 summit EFSF changes is Slovakia on October 11.

Germany Vote Flips Currency Markets to Risk-on Mode

The news helped spur risk appetite, with equities a Europe strengthening following the vote, and the euro gaining on its key rivals.

The EUR/USD continues to trade in a range, mainly within the trading price action we saw in yesterday's global session. The GBP/USD rebounded from a dip overnight to 1.5545, the AUD/USD pared some of its steep falls from yesterday, finding resistance prior to NY trading at 0.9877. all in all what was a period of risk aversion to and in your trading session yesterday, has flip to a more risk on position during at least the overnight European trading session.

German's Labor Market Thumbs its Nose at Crisis

In Germany we also did a get a positive fundamental report. The number of unemployed people fell by a seasonally adjusted 20 6K to 2.9 2 million. That was a bigger drop than expected (-8K), and was the biggest drop since April. The adjusted unemployment rate slipped to 6.9% from 7%.

The German labor market has been one of the big success stories over the last few years, and currently unemployment rate is at two decade lows. While the fear that's is European sovereign debt crisis will slow euro zone growth overall, and hit its largest economy in Germany, this report shows that labor market continues to provide a sense of optimism.

the take away here, is that even as global trade may slow, giving trade a smaller percentage in terms of growth in GDP, a low unemployment rate will increase overall incomes, giving German consumers more money spent. Therefore domestic demand can help fill the hole left by weakening exports if this crisis was to hurt global growth.